The City and You: Find Your Best Place

The City and You: Find Your Best Place

University of Toronto

About this course: Welcome to The City and You: Find Your Best Place. I'm excited to have you in the class and look forward to your contributions to the other learners in our community.
This free course will provide the knowledge and the tools needed to understand what cities do, why they matter, the forces shaping the greatest wave of urbanization in history, and how to pick the right place for you. The course will also help you develop critical thinking skills. We'll accomplish this by providing evidence of the importance of cities, and why and how they matter to you. Then we’ll ask you to apply what you’ve learned in an exercise which will help you assess your own community and find your best place.
This course is accessible and open to anyone who is interested in learning more about cities and the ways they affect our lives. It is organized around five key modules: (1) Why Cities Matter, (2) A World of Cities, (3) The Creative City, (4) The Divided City and the New Urban Crisis, and (5) How to Find the Best Place for You.
After completing the course, you will be able to:
(1) Identify why cities are the drivers of economic prosperity;
(2) Explain the drivers and implications of fast-growing urbanization worldwide;
(3) Outline the key characteristics of a creative and innovative city;
(4) Describe the social divides and challenges facing cities and the solutions cities are using to address them; and
(5) Recognize the trade-offs of staying in your current city versus moving, and identify the best place for you and your family to live.
Good luck as you get started, and I hope you enjoy the course!

Who is this class for: This is class is for anyone who wants to better appreciate the trends shaping our cities and communities today and how the places we live shape our lives.

Created by:University of Toronto

Taught by:Richard Florida, University Professor and Director of Cities, University of Toronto

This session will help you to understand the importance of cities for both the economy and society, as well as, you and your family. Today, more than three and a half billion people live in cities, which is more than half of the world's population. That figure is projected to rise to as many as 10 billion people or 85 percent of the world's population over the next century. Cities are our premier platforms for generating new innovations, higher levels of economic growth, and new and better jobs. We will discuss why and how cities are important, and why picking the right city to live is important to your career, well-being, and life.

Video: What The City and You is About & How It Will Benefit You (Instructor Video)

Reading: Course Syllabus

Video: Why Cities Matter (Instructor Video)

Discussion Prompt: What Do Cities Do?

Reading: Why Cities Matter

Reading: What Makes for a Great City

Reading: Triumph of the City

Reading: Jane Jacobs -﻿ Who Changed the Way We Think About Cities

Reading: Optional Activity: Living Atlas

Video: Richard Florida Week 1 Follow-up - Cohort 1

Video: Richard Florida Week 1 Follow-up - Cohort 2

Video: Richard Florida Week 1 Follow-up - Cohort 3

Video: Richard Florida Week 1 Follow-up - U of T Alumni Edition

Graded: Pause and Reflect: Should You Stay or Move?

Graded: Why Cities Matter

WEEK 2

A World of Cities

This session will help you understand the opportunities and challenges of urbanization around the world. Global urbanization has the power to lift living standards, create economic opportunity and jobs, reduce pollution, improve energy efficiency, and make the world safer. But, many cities in the developing world remain poor, with millions of people crowded into global slums.

Video: Opportunities & Challenges of Global Cities (Instructor Video: includes discussion of the exercise for this week)

Discussion Prompt: What is a Global City?

Reading: The World is Spiky

Reading: Planet of Cities

Reading: Urbanization Without Growth

Reading: The Problem of Global Slums

Reading: Why Cities Matter in the Developing World

Reading: OPTIONAL ACTIVITY: Population Density Map

Video: Richard Florida Week 2 Follow-up - Cohort 1

Video: Richard Florida Week 2 Follow-up - Cohort 2

Video: Richard Florida Week 2 Follow-up - Cohort 3

Video: Richard Florida Week 2 Follow-up - U of T Alumni Edition

Graded: Pause and Reflect: Tell Us about Your Global City

Graded: A World of Cities

WEEK 3

The Creative City

Cities have been the fonts of creativity since the dawn of civilization. The clustering of creative people in them and the diversity they bring is what drives key advances in arts, culture, and technology. These wellsprings of human progress have always occurred in our great cities from Athens and Rome to London, New York, and the emerging economies in Asia. This session will help you better understand how the clustering of diverse groups of creative people in cities spurs artistic achievement, scientific and technological advance, and human progress.

Video: Technology, Talent and Tolerance in the Creative City (Instructor Video)

Video: How Cities Spur Creativity (Instructor Video: includes discussion of the exercise for this week)

Discussion Prompt: What Makes Cities Creative?

Reading: Creativity and Cities

Reading: Global Startup Cities

Reading: The Urban Tech Revolution

Reading: The Geography of Innovation

Reading: Optional Activity - UNESCO Creative Cities Network

Video: Richard Florida Week 3 Follow-up- Cohort 1

Video: Richard Florida Week 3 Follow-up- Cohort 2

Video: Richard Florida Week 3 Follow-up- Cohort 3

Video: Richard Florida Week 3 Follow-up - U of T Alumni Edition

Reading: Innovation

Graded: Pause and Reflect: Your Creative City

Graded: On the Creative City

WEEK 4

The New Urban Crisis

This session will help you better understand the New Urban Crisis and the growing economic divides that challenge cities today. In the second half of the 20th century, society was divided between poorer cities and richer suburbs. But, over the past decade or so, affluent and educated people have flocked back to urban centers pushing poverty out to the suburbs. Today, middle-class neighborhoods are in decline and our societies are defined by small areas of concentrated advantaged surrounded by much larger areas of concentrated disadvantage spanning the city and its suburb alike.

Video: Gentrification and the Divided City (Instructor Video: includes discussion of the exercise for this module)

Discussion Prompt: To What Degree are Our Cities Becoming More Divided and Unequal?

Reading: Why America's Richest Cities Keep Getting Richer

Reading: How Expensive Housing is Stifling of Creativity of Cities

Reading: The Divided City

Reading: Confronting the New Urban Crisis

Reading: OPTIONAL ACTIVITY: Wealth Divides

Video: Richard Florida Week 4 Follow-Up- Cohort 1

Video: Richard Florida Week 4 Follow-Up Cohort 2

Video: Richard Florida Week 4 Follow-Up Cohort 3

Video: Richard Florida Week 4 Follow-up - U of T Alumni Edition

Graded: Pause and Reflect: The Divides and Challenges of Your City

Graded: The New Urban Crisis

WEEK 5

Find Your Best Place

This session will help you understand the importance of where you live to your life and career. We each make three big decisions in our lives: our career, our choice of life-partner, and the place (city and neighborhood) where we live. We get lots of advice on the first two, but little on the third. Yet, choosing where to live is the most important decision of all. It shapes and influences the kinds of careers that we pursue and the kinds of people we will meet. This session provides you with the tools and a framework for choosing the place that is best for you and your family.

Video: Use the Place-Finder Tool to Find Your Best Place (Instructor Video: includes discussion of the final assignment)

Discussion Prompt: Find Your Best Place

Reading: How to Love the Place You Live

Reading: On How to Choose the Place That Is Best for You

Video: Richard Florida Final Remarks

Video: Richard Florida Week 5 Follow-up and Final Remarks - Cohort 1

Video: Richard Florida Week 5 Follow-up - Cohort 2

Video: Richard Florida Week 5 Follow-Up Cohort 3

Video: Richard Florida Week 5 Follow-up - U of T Alumni Edition

Reading: Peer Assignment Option: Story Map Tour

Graded: Find Your Best Place - Capstone Activity

FAQs

How It Works

Coursework

Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.

Help from Your Peers

Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material,
and get help mastering concepts.

Certificates

Earn official recognition for your work, and share your success with friends,
colleagues, and employers.

Creators

University of Toronto

Established in 1827, the University of Toronto has one of the strongest research and teaching faculties in North America, presenting top students at all levels with an intellectual environment unmatched in depth and breadth on any other Canadian campus.